Death's Bite
by freyinthelake
Summary: Arya has taken a bigger toll on Gendry than anyone thought, and Arya makes a disturbing discovery in her dreams. When she wakes up, it's still true.


She was dreaming again.

When Arya woke up, she could never decide if she truly hated dreaming as a whole or liked it every once in a while. Warging was a comfort, even considering the violent things Nymeria did and saw. Warging meant that Nymeria was _alive_ - that _Arya_ was alive, that she could _do_ something. The battle between her and helplessness was vicious hand to hand combat that often rendered Arya inwardly wearied at the end of the day. But sometimes…sometimes she saw and felt good things while she was asleep.

Maybe old Winterfell sat in the background. A simple, silent reminder that "home" still existed, that pieces and crumbs led back to particles of a family, and she would find them one day. Sansa sat on a high stool and looked down on her, and if Arya was lucky her sister was smiling. Bran and Rickon ran in circles, but Bran never truly…._ran_. It appeared more like he was _flying_ because his feet didn't touch the ground. Robb was only ever a mirage that took up merely a slice of the cold air. Arya's hand went through him every time she tried to reach for his hand or his cloak. Jon was standing atop a wall no more than a shout beyond, but if Arya ran towards him Jon remained the same distance away, no matter how hard she tried to rake the dirt below her feet behind her.

Her parents were nowhere to be found. Multiple times she thought she heard them talking in the godswood, but if she searched, they had gone.

Then sometimes there was Gendry. Always smelling of dirt and metal and sweat that was earned by backbreaking work. His face was accompanied by loud pinging sounds and echoing that only a forge could emit. "Comfort" was the best word that fit his presence if he graced her nighttime sight. Also "grumpy". It was an affectionate grumpy nonetheless, and in waking hours it was typically due to Arya's incessant questions or teasing, sometimes poking. All the fault belonged to Gendry though; he was easily riled and teased. It wasn't Arya's fault that she found all the places that she could get a reaction by.

Tonight, the she wolf in Arya's eyes found him in a circlet of trees. So closely did it resemble the circlet in which the Brotherhood was sleeping that Arya laughed her wolf laugh, which turned into a howl. One that sounded of mirth and freedom. Her long nose turned toward the bull boy to see what he though of her happy howls, but his face unpleasantly surprised her.

Blue eyes were alight with a flame, but not flame that danced at the end of the night when they talked or argued until one of them fell asleep. This was danger; this was fear. Uncertainty. A decision? A muddy gray tail flicked in confusion as Arya pushed one paw hesitantly forward, asking with her eyes, "_Why? What is it_?"

Letting out a heavy breath, Gendry lowered himself to one knee. For one brief moment he took her right paw in his large, rough hand, so unlike a boy's. Then he dropped it. The cracking of a stick somewhere close by instantly raised Arya's hackles. The sound was a warning: something was coming, and it was telling her to run. But why should she run? She was safe here with the bull boy, wasn't she? He had horns, that was true, but…..

A full stillness by her shoulder turned Arya's grey head to face Gendry once more. He was leaning her over her now, and she tipped her head so far back to see his face that she could see nothing else **but** his face. Studying Gendry's blue-fire eyes, the wild wolf girl was again caught off guard. He looked sorry for something. About something. Had he done it, or was he about -

The knife she couldn't see for staring at his face buried itself so far into her wolf chest that she assumed it must have poked out of her back. Metal was cold. So cold, like her Father's blade, Ice. Aptly named them. Blackness took over…

…and in the calm and dark of the forest, with the Brotherhood twenty feet away and the fire ten, Gendry was still leaning over her, perched across her legs. But Arya was not dreaming now - instead cold, _so_ cold. Then fire ignited in the middle of her chest where the knife had struck true and burned agonizingly over her body completely until she felt no more pain. Only nothing. Nothing at all. The same sorry look still sat in Gendry's eyes, only now the apology was being swamped by pain and desperation. He didn't think she would wake up. He hoped she would never see what sin he'd committed, he who promised that he would keep her secrets and be her friend when all others seemed to shy away or drop from the earth completely. They were similar, those two children. One bastard, and one true-born bastard in her own way.

"_Only Gendry was different_."

What a lie. Everything was a lie, except death. Death that took the best members of her family save one or two. So this was where her trust had gotten her. How many times had she said to herself "so this was where _ had gotten her"? Too many. For ALL the work she'd done, things she'd ACCOMPLISHED, TIES she'd forged and broken, PAIN she endured with a heart as hard as Valyrian steel,

was what she received in return.

The dying girl looked at the living boy, and the boy looked at her. For that was all they were; children. One doing wrong to another, and both realizing too late the mistakes they'd made. Arya looked at him until her body felt dry and her eyelids felt weighed down with all the stones in Winterfell's walls. A crimson knife fell and hit soft ground, and breath poured from Gendry while all of Arya's left her. As she felt herself sucked into the dark she had called home for years now, one last look at Gendry reminded her that she didn't have to trust anything ever, ever again. Because trust was something that she couldn't hold in her hand, and if she couldn't hold this ONE thing in her hand, maybe it wasn't so real after all.


End file.
